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Sound Card upgrade or adding an external DAC - Page 3

post #31 of 40
11/23/10 at 7:15am

Poorly designed electronics pick up radio stations.  If you are listening to the radio in your car you deal with radio anomalies.  The noise isn't from the car itself.

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post #32 of 40
11/23/10 at 9:17am
Thread Starter 

Xonar ST: 165€

V-DAC: 210€

Dacmagic: 315€

 

What do you think about the SQ of the -ugly looking- V-DAC?

How would it pair with the Canamp-AKG cans?

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post #33 of 40
11/23/10 at 10:23am

If you dont have problem with spending the dough you should go with either the V-Dac or Dacmagic. Considering the price difference between V-Dac and Dacmagic i would go for the V-Dac and upgrade the PSU later on.

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post #34 of 40
11/23/10 at 3:18pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ramicio View Post

Poorly designed electronics pick up radio stations.  If you are listening to the radio in your car you deal with radio anomalies.  The noise isn't from the car itself.


Metal objects tend to interact with electromagnetic radiation. 

 

When current moves in your computer it produces an electromagnetic field orthogonal to the direction of the radiation. 

 

Happens outside too, but the components are blocked (hopefully) by a material that will interact with the radiation before hand. 

 

Theres plenty of other issues also...

 

Dave

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post #35 of 40
11/24/10 at 9:14am
Thread Starter 

Just asked what would it be a nice upgrade when started this thread a few days ago and now I´m about to pull the trigger on a v-dac for about 210€ (new)...devil_face.gif

As we all know, the Heed Canamp is a lushy, tubey and a bit slow sounding amp.

Is the MF v-dac a good pair for the Heed or I´m making the sweetest but slowest, less dynamically sounding combo on earth?


Edited by moonshake - 11/24/10 at 9:16am
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post #36 of 40
11/24/10 at 6:29pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by moonshake View Post



Quote:
Originally Posted by myinitialsaredac View Post


if you are using an outboard amp changing the analog path on your sound card shouldnt make a difference. 

 

I would also agree with going with an outboard dac.

Can you recommend any below 300€ external DAC that can outperform D2, ST/STX SQ ? (I mean going coax from my actual D2) 
 

If you are considering using the ST with opamps as a dac and an amp its an interesting idea, but I think the bursons would benefit froma  more robust power circuit. Again you run into the electrical issues of an onboard soundcard. I suppose you could shield it but the power source is still sub-optimal.

Ok...and to be sincere, I don´t know if it´s worth the hassle. Thanks about the advice on the power source, thought a solid 12v-18a rail to the ST could be enough.

 

Im not sure of the implementation of the dac circuit on the ST but you should look at both the chip, power source, bias, and analog stage of the dac output.

 

Hope this helps, 

Dave


Thanks for the help!


If you are using an amp the the analog circuit on the Asus card does matter but if you use a DAC+Amp then it doesn't matter. you could actually use the cheapest  of the asus cards as they almost all use the same sound processor as the essense cards. That would save you some dough if you go the DAC+Amp route

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post #37 of 40
11/25/10 at 8:32am
Thread Starter 

Maybe an Audio-Gd NFB 3 is a better option than the V-dac or the Dacmagic...

Do you think it can match well with the Heed?

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post #38 of 40
11/25/10 at 8:51am

On my old laptop (Dell Inspiron 8600) the noise levels were really high, using a stationary integrated amp that was sensitive to picking up background noise, I could hear the cursor moving across the screen, the modem sounds and other internals of my computer.

 

On my new laptop (Sony Vaio CW15FX) the noise level is thankfully really low, even using that amp, I can't pick up much noise from it at all, which is the way it should be.

 

I'm curious if I can upgrade the soundcard to something better though, and if it's worth upgrading soundcards in laptops?

 

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post #39 of 40
11/27/10 at 5:02am
Quote:
Originally Posted by kiteki View Post

On my old laptop (Dell Inspiron 8600) the noise levels were really high, using a stationary integrated amp that was sensitive to picking up background noise, I could hear the cursor moving across the screen, the modem sounds and other internals of my computer.

 

On my new laptop (Sony Vaio CW15FX) the noise level is thankfully really low, even using that amp, I can't pick up much noise from it at all, which is the way it should be.

 

I'm curious if I can upgrade the soundcard to something better though, and if it's worth upgrading soundcards in laptops?

 


lol ditto on the dell laptop (also dell here) and same amp as above. I can hear the spinning up details of the ext hdd...I find it highly amusing for some reason.

you can get an ext usb dac. (usb powered or not). Pretty sure there are also pci-express mini cards (or whatever the modern exp slot on laptops is called). but I somewhat doubt they're much good. The cards on moderns laptops are on the motherboard and can't be errr 'explicitly upgraded' if you wish.
Edited by svyr - 11/27/10 at 5:05am
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post #40 of 40
11/27/10 at 6:34am

As you dont have a external amp either, you could check out Fiio E9 + E7 amp/dac combo.

Comes around 160€ shipped from UK.

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